atlasducycle

[atlasducycle]

I want to share with you a  journey novel,  riding a few days throught the Massif Central.  

Thanks to my friend Leo who proposed me to ride during our vacation, this journey could start !

Moreover my dissertation’s theme this year is about Slow travel so this project and it  were perfectly fit together and therefore I decided to pack my stuff and join him !

This journey started with a day train trip on the Ceveno Line. Time seems to stop, like if we were going back in the past.

 The train travels through the Cevennes and Lozere massif, its speed is slow, I admire through the windows  mountains and villages, the landscapes are breathtaking. 

In February in the Massif Central, it’s cold, very cold, I met Leo at his apartment Place de la Bourse in Clermont-Ferrand and we did the last settings. Our bikes are French mountain bikes from the 90’s and we did some improvements on them to feel more comfortable and to be able to ride into the snow of the  Massif Central.. Léo rides a 1987 Mercier steel bike made in Saint-Etienne in the Loire, I ride a 1995 Peugeot steel bike. 

Last check up on our bikes, provisions and stuff packed, we leave Clermont-Ferrnad on Saturday February  26th to join Saint-Flour 170km lower, we use the map to orient ourselves.  

The track goes through 4 mountains ranges which are the chaine des puys, the massif du Sancy, the plateau du Cézallier and at last the monts du Cantal. The track uses sections of the GTMC which are on your website, but we used variants via the GR 30 and the GR du Tour du Cézallier in particular to ride  on the last snow of the massifs. 

Various peripeties, mechanical issues, meeting with locals, freezing weather were part of the journey but it was a good experience and, as Thierry Paquot says, it’s about adapting to the environment, travelling is a different conditioning

[atlasducycle]

Dessin encre de Chine février 2022.